1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hinge for furniture provided with an improved box-fastening arrangement.
2. State of the Prior Art
The ironmongery market for furniture has always been sensitive to innovations enabling a quicker and steadier fastening of the ironmongery elements to the wooden panels. In particular in the case of furniture intended for the “do-it-yourself” market, the so-called “tool less” systems have been increasingly more appreciated, by means of which a safe fastening is ensured without resorting to any type of implement such as a screwdriver or a hammer.
Different technical solutions are known as well as different patents describing this type of fastening; in particular U.S. Pat. No. 6,279,200 shows a particularly cheap and efficient solution for fastening the movable part of a hinge (the box) to the door of a piece of furniture. In this embodiment, expansion of a fastening anchor is obtained by manual rotation of a flat lever partly overlapping the box flange. The embodiment shown in such a patent however has a limit, i.e. in addition to the central hole for housing the box, two side holes are required for introduction of the screw anchors and for this reason the manufacturer is obliged to carry out a type of drilling that is slightly more expensive than the most standardized drilling systems, but above all of difficult interchangeability with them.
Fastening solutions are also known in which fitting directly takes place on the walls of the central hole receiving the hinge box, this arrangement being substantially standardized and practically common to all types of hinges presently on the market.
These solutions however suffer from a relative complexity, and usually need kinematic mechanisms and/or cams producing the outwards thrust of locking jaws on the wood, in an attempt to someway exploit the idea of the screw anchor. These fastening arrangements therefore are not satisfactory.
A further aspect of the problem resides in that often known mechanisms for locking the box in the hole have only one thrust component that is radial to the hole, while an additional axial component would be advantageous to enable the box to be drawn inwardly of the hole and better adhere to the furniture surface.
It is a general aim of the present invention to obviate the above mentioned drawbacks by providing a furniture hinge provided with a fastening mechanism directly acting inside the box hole in a simple and efficient manner and, if desired, with an axial pulling component.